These Cape Codders found relatives they didn't know they had

Three Cape Codders found relatives they didn't know they had

There's a letter in the mail from a woman who says she has been looking for her father and wonders if the similarity in your maiden names means you may be related. Do you toss the letter in recycling? You get a message on Facebook from someone who says she is a child your wife gave up for adoption 47 years ago? Do you ignore ...

By Evelyn Jackson

capecodtimes.com

By Evelyn Jackson

Posted Jan. 19, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By Evelyn Jackson

Posted Jan. 19, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

There's a letter in the mail from a woman who says she has been looking for her father and wonders if the similarity in your maiden names means you may be related.

Do you toss the letter in recycling?

You get a message on Facebook from someone who says she is a child your wife gave up for adoption 47 years ago?

Do you ignore it?

A woman calls saying she is your husband's biological sister, one you never thought he had.

Do you hang up?

For three Cape Cod women once they reached out — by mail, internet and phone — there was a receptive person at the other end of their effort to connect and their lives changed.

For Wendy Carol Stuart of Orleans, her reaching out resulted from curiosity. For Tammie Beale of Eastham and Karen Pagano of Wellfleet, theirs came from a sense that something was missing in their lives — the truth about a biological parent.

All three of them were lucky in the outcome.

Stuart and her husband, Ken, live in Orleans. They have five children and 11 grandchildren, all of whom consider the Cape their summer home. When enough of them gather, they hold "Camp Stuart," where everyone plays old-fashioned games. Wendy was not feeling devoid of family.

Yet, she explains, "I wondered about my birth father. When I was 2, my mother left Frank, my father. My mother told me he was a real charmer, yet was a gambling addict. When my mother was still alive, she'd heard through the grapevine that Frank had remarried, had a daughter and had named her Wendy. I'd never heard from him again after my mother remarried and for years figured he had died and did not think of looking for him.

"But one day, three years ago, out of curiosity, I looked up Wendy on the computer. Her name turned up by chance because her husband had just died. It was in the south where I knew they lived. I was sure it was her.

"I wrote her a letter and said I am looking for the family of Frank and gave her my email address. When she answered she said she was surprised that anyone would be looking for her father. I said it was a long story but told her we might have the same father.

"She said she'd always thought there was another Wendy, for she'd found a photo in their family album with Wendy #1 written on it, but she never knew who that baby was. She also told me her middle name was Carol — just as my middle name is. She told me I had two sisters and three brothers.

"I said I'd love to meet everyone. On a trip to Florida, we stopped in the south where she lived and I met Wendy, her sister and her sister's husband and one brother. I learned that Wendy #2 was 10 when her mom died and 12 when Frank died. The children had been raised by different people all around the East coast and then three of them had been taken in by grandparents. Once Wendy married at 18, she took her two younger brothers in.

"During our visit, Wendy #2 told me stories about Frank — how he used to love Peter Pan and Wendy and read that book to them. That had been my mother's favorite story as well. Some of the songs my mom sang to me, he sang to them. Because of this contact, I now have a sense of who my father was and I also feel like I have another family.

"Another thing I got out of it was that I learned about my grandparents. She filled me in on their history and closed the circle of my past.

"Getting to know my half-siblings changed my view of the value of religion. The family of Wendy #2 are all members of the Assembly of God. I'd always been intolerant of what I considered to be extreme sects, but I am now thankful that my half-siblings had faith in Christ.

"They were children who had lost both parents, and had been left to grieve separately. They were able to put their faith in something larger than themselves. I saw how religion had saved this family."

Tammie Beale also took a risk that paid off. Beale was adopted from a Boston foster home when she was 5 years old by, as she says, "a most wonderful family. I had the greatest upbringing in Eastham in the house I am living in now. My adoptive Mom, Jackie Beale, used to be the nursing director at Orleans Convalescence Home. They wanted to adopt an interracial child. The family that raised me is number 1. All my friends wanted to be adopted, too.

"When I was young, race didn't mean anything to me. So being interracial never made me feel unwanted on Cape Cod. But as I got toward middle school, it got tougher. I felt a little out of place. Everyone expected you had to date the one black kid. When I finally went to UMass Dartmouth, there were many black kids, but then I felt out of place around them. I was not city-slick like them."

Beale had long known her biological mom was white and Jewish, but she began a search for her father out of a sense that something was missing in her life.

"My adoptive mother is still alive, but when my adopted father, Charles, passed in 2001, I started wondering who my biological dad was. With the aid of Facebook, I was able to find him. He's Harold Peroti who now lives in Boston. Peroti is from Surinam, Dutch Guyana in South America. When I found him on Facebook, he said, 'I am so happy you contacted me.'

"Finding my biological dad made me feel complete. I learned he did not purposely throw me away. He'd never had a chance to get to know who I was. My color did not matter anymore. I was looking for someone I was like. My biological mom and I were not too similar, but I discovered my Dad and I are a lot alike. I now know where I get parts of my personality. He likes to write poetry and is into music. He volunteers in shelters. I was always artistic and want to help people. I feel close to him because that is how I am. It made me feel a connection — a blood connection. I wanted to know who did I take after. I now have a bond and know my roots, what makes me up in the gene pool."

Tammie's effort to reach out paid off. Finding her biological father filled in a part of her that had long felt empty.

Karen Pagano of Wellfleet had long wondered who her biological family was. Unlike Tammie, she had not felt comfortable with her adopted parents. She'd always felt different from them. So five years ago, when she began a search and found her 94-year-old biological uncle, she learned that she had a brother in Connecticut. She tells what happens from that point on and the effect it has had on her life:

"I called my brother's house and his wife answered. She hung up on me. I decided to be brave and barge in on the family and drove to my brother's driveway. I knew the address. Once they got to know me, they said they don't know what they would have done without me in their lives.

"Finding my brother (Michael) filled a big hole. Our temperaments were the same. We liked the same kind of jokes. We think the same. We could finish each other's sentences. Someone asked us who we would like to meet more than anyone else. We both said, Jack Nicholson at the same time. We looked at each other and said, 'What?' I was no longer a child who wondered who I was. I was someone. I had a brother."

Kathie Peterson has been the supervisor of Child and Family Services, which offers specialized adoption services, for 14 years. To Peterson, the stories of Beale, Stuart and Pagano are positive ones. "There certainly can be wonderful outcomes," she says. "They have found a new place in someone's heart and soul, a feeling that was missing."

From her experience, however, "when I think about finding your family, I think about expectations and regrets. Sometimes the expectations are in agreement, but sometimes they are not in alignment. One person may want to join the new family and the family may not be so receptive. Sometimes the searcher has an idealized view of who the foundee is.

"What if a son adopted out of a family early on then meets children who had been kept. He may ask, 'Why wasn't I kept?'

"Sometimes a meeting can impact thoughts about who the parents actually were. What if a mother was abused and left her marriage and the kids of that first marriage with grandparents. Then she went on to have a new family. Children from the second family may meet half-siblings from the first marriage and find that their mother was not who they thought she was."

Peterson's advice to those seeking a connection speaks to the uncertainty of reaching out. She advises searchers "to first see a therapist if there are complicated feelings to process. Be aware of your expectations."

Yet, when the connection works, as it has with Stuart, Beale and Pagano, the results can be life-affirming.

"I didn't know what love was until I met my family," says Pagano. "Now I feel there is a reason for me being here. These people enjoy me and let me know. It seems like the universe was trying to tell us we were connected. Michael's skin felt like mine."